Trump wrote in his online service Truth Social: “Russia’s President Putin does not want to do an armistice agreement with Ukraine, but would like to meet in Turkey on Thursday to negotiate a possible end of the bloodbath”. The US President added: “Ukraine should agree immediately.”
The Ukrainian President Selenskyj combined the announcement of his participation in discussions in Istanbul in online service X with the renewed demand for “complete and permanent ceasefire”. This is the “necessary basis for diplomacy”.
Putin had proposed direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on Sunday night in the metropolis on the Bosphorus. Before that, however, he had again rejected a request from Ukraine and its European partners for an ceasefire without priority.
Trump announced on Saturday in his online network Truth Social that he would “continue to work with both sides” to end the war in Ukraine. On Saturday evening he also wrote: “An important day for Russia and Ukraine!” – without specifying what this statement referred to.
Representatives of both sides had held talks in Turkey three years ago at the beginning of the Ukraine war, but they remained with no result. Since then, direct contacts between Russia and Ukraine have only been to exchange prisoners of war or to hand over corpses.
In Istanbul, agreements for export Ukrainian grain were also negotiated in the summer of 2022 with the UN and Turkey. Ukraine and Russia signed them separately.
